Sorry - faithful blogites -- I have been a little overwhelemed these past few weeks. Since our big Anniversary celebration, i have been catching up in the office, with counseling and then getting the new ministry year uop and running! Here are some of the stuff I have been up to the last two week....
1. Anniversay weekend ended, but the small groups and mentoring groups were in full flight. I am teaching a men;s mentoring group called Foundations of Leadership. It is one of my favorite classes/cources that I teach -- primarily because i know that it will have astonishing affects on the partcipants -- it always does.
2. I have been having discussions with some facility people about locating a place for our offices off the church site. We are ok for now -- but by next spring we will be hurting for children's and adult class space. The removal of the offices will really help. We did some creative construction and was able to capture two new classrooms -- outstanding.
3. I have had a lot of conversations about the economic condition in America and how it is effect our people. Fortunately we do not have a lot of people who play the stock Market but still retirement plans have been hurt and so there is a number of people stressed. We have not seen it affect the church giving situation but my guess is that by January it will!
4. On October 5 we hosted location politicians and those running for office. It was outstanding! I spoke on Zaccheus and we gave each person a copy of 10 Choices by James MacDonald.
5 Talking about James -- our pastors went out the the Straight Up Conference in Chicago -- it was awesome. What a blessing. john MacArthur, CJ Mahaney, Joe Stowell...unbelieveable worship! What a spiritually renewing two days.
6. We got back a had a number of major crisis slam us! We went from spiritual highs to the reality of ministry lows. We got thru but it tough!
7. Finally I launched my new sermon series - Signs of Life - reflecting the Son's Lif in Ours -- I spoke of the foundations of that kind of life - Love God and Love people. It was well received.
Today I am home nursing a sore back -- i think the matress is shot- BAck to the grind tomorrow! JM